Hi John, that’s excellent, thanks for doing that, hopefully something will come of it.
I got into mountain bikes in the mid-to-late 80’s. I built my first one from an old frame, some new wheels our local bike shop ordered for me , and various bits I managed to pick up, before moving on to a buy another ‘real’ mountain bike while at University (I still have them both).
There was no mountain bike ‘scene’ at the time, especially since we were in a relatively remote place, but my father and I used these two bikes across roads and trails all over the Scottish Highlands, both for the cycling aspect and also to gain access for climbing various mountains. I suppose “mountain bike racing”, "cross country’"as it would become, was starting up across the UK but I didn’t know anything about it.
Recently I watched some YouTube videos of early UK mountain bike racing, it is nice to think I was kind of involved, doing my ‘own thing’ , when it started to take off. It is amazing to see the progression of mountain biking to what it has become now. Obviously unicycling will never explode in the way mountain bikes did but it would be good to preserve as much of the history as possible, especially in video form, from what you say Cory Riback’s film would be a great addition, hopefully it can be made public.
It’s a poor video, but probably the one that has inspired me the most. I thought the rider looked like an average person, and it made me realize that I might be able to ride a 36 inch unicycle myself. I then bought a 24 trainer and four months later a 36 ‘Nimbus Impulse Disc unicycle with Shadow handle’.
Thanks so much for posting this. I was captivated by the historical nature of the video and found it easy to watch it from start to finish. What I didn’t notice while watching it, is how many ways it was filling in my understanding of various mechanical fundamentals. I don’t ever care to hop a rock field endlessly the way he did, but something about watching him has accelerated my learning as a noob a few months in. The bit about the significance of torque on a pedal stroke (I think of it as acceleration) was a revelation. I guess it would have dawned on me soon enough, but I loved gleaning that from him.
There are a few for me, Ryan Kremsater’s A North Shore Shred stands out, and the Lutz Eicholtz one on Mt Damavand. Some of the Voodoo stuff, particularly the Scottish road trip they did.
And currently the Chris Huriwai series of lessons, his way of breaking skills down and keeping the progression logical from one step to the next.
Yes, I agree with that, I seem to remember that things were reasonably ‘modern’ round that time, but it does look somewhat historical now!
I think I would have been really excited to have had a VHS copy of ‘Rough Terrain Unicycling’, when you look at it in the context of however-many-petabytes of video there are on YouTube/Vimeo etc it does seem like a different age though
The post above got me thinking what actually made me buy a unicycle in the first place. I had briefly looked in passing at rec.sport.unicycling on Usenet back in the early/mid 90’s but it didn’t click.
Many years later I saw this video and that is what lead me to some more googling, and finding out Muni was “a thing!” Going up to the chimney on my two storey house is more than high enough for me, but this was what inspired me to start looking at unicycles again after passing by rec.sport.unicycling so many years before.
My boss showed me that a few weeks ago, asking if I could do that. I told him that the guy tumbled off right after the video ends and that I don’t play bagpipes.
My hands get sweaty just by watching it.
He should have just jumped off with a parachute. Should be high enough for that right… also with the uni dangling under him.
Well yes, it did make feel pretty strange when I first saw it. I think it came up on YouTube because I had been watching some of these “roof-topper” videos of folk climbing high buildings, usually illegally. However it enlightened me a bit more to the world of unicycles and a subsequent realisation that there was things like Muni and street unicycling. I watched so many videos then.
I think this is the Voodoo Unicycles video OorWullie refers to above. I really like this one too, especially the bit on the Kylesku bridge in Sutherland (starts at ~8:34). It is a beautiful piece of engineering in a beautiful part of the world, I’ve been over there many times and stayed beside it too:- I’d never have imagined someone with a unicycle doing that though… Let’s just say the consequence of failure would be the same as on the chimney… you just wouldn’t have so long to think about it
At least there is water below, which is slightly safer than the ground. Nevertheless it is a long way down. Next time my mum visits, I will show her those videos. She has a strong fear of heights. I am evil that way. We always tell her that there it is a nice view.
Filming that was terrifying. I was shaking the whole time. It was a long drop to the water and the tide was ripping out so fast you would have been swept away in seconds.
We were in two vans travelling to Kylesku, Mike and I in one and the rest of the crew with the A camera in the second. We got separated when the other van stopped for fuel. Mike had been mentally preparing himself to ride the bridge all the way from Lochinver. When we got to the bridge, Mike said ‘I have to do it right now!’
We shot the wide first and then did the closeup. You can see me shaking on the wide shot, especially when I zoom out. I felt so helpless up there if he fell. When I was closer to him with the steadicam, I felt much more like I could have grabbed him if he’d started falling. Mike was cool as a cucumber for the whole thing.
That is a nice video, it is nice to hear some of the back-story. I’m always surprised it hasn’t got more views. I like Jason’s comment that “choosing to ride a unicycle requires a certain personality,” I guess that is pretty much spot on.
Anyway, next time I am over that way I’ll have to take my KH20 and stop for a ride in the car park and take a walk along the bridge for a photo ‘in tribute’!
I’m enjoying your podcasts BTW, and also the one you did with Phil, good stuff.
Any of the Hans Howald videos on youtube. As a 52 year old rider he is a great inspiration of what older riders can accomplish. He has ridden all over Europe and the British Isles. Check him out, his editing and music are very well done.
He is actually one of the main reasons I got into unicycling. He lives in a Town in the same part of Switzerland as me. That’s why he made it into our small local newspaper with his tour across Europe. When I read the article it somehow stuck with me. It took another year or so until I actually ordered a unicycle but this was definitely the tipping point.
